It reminds me when I was learning piano. Yeah, I wanted to play the classics or the modern tunes, bu instead as my fingers where pathetic I had to practice with boring and monotone scores to build dexterity for my hands.
I think that’s something similar with programming, language learning and such. And again, college gives no time for that.
More anecdotal evidence: I was 3 months in German at college, at the 1st semester, really stressful due to the scholarship. I learned nothing.